Today, I found out the realreason we’re working such long hours andgetting money in the door.In 2014, a physician didn’t have his contract renewed over some pretty petty stuff, e.g., a sexual relationship with a coworker, questionable prescriptions for controlled pain medicine, etc. After his dismissal, he turned whistleblower, accused our healthcare system of ordering unnecessary treatments for patients, incorrect billing to Medicare and other insurance companies, and stated the reason he was fired was because he kept talking to his superiors about the issues.

He filed a wrongful discharge suit against my employers, then testified in two separate cases for the Department of Justice.The subsequent investigations determined there was no fraud on our part, we were completely cleared of that charge, but there were a few incidents of incorrect billing – totally benign, not fraud. The physician’s wrongful discharge suit was thrown out as unsubstantiated, but we had to refund quite a bit of money to the insurance companies and the DoJ assessed penalties of $34,000,000.

Again, at my place of work, we’re working long hours and not having much success. There are thousands claims totaling millions of dollars, just sitting. I was asked to jump in and work on them, but when I saw they’re all federal payers – Veteran’s Affairs, Indian Nation Health, Active Military, I knew there was nothing I could do.

We have a team dedicated to these claims, which have to be worked in a very specific way. If they’re sent incorrectly, we’re not given a chance to appeal, we have to start over from scratch. It’s a complicated, time consuming process and I am not about to mess anything up.The hierarchy are flogging us to get claims out the door and money coming in, but we’re working with one hand tied behind our backs, getting closer and closer to the edge of the precipice. Yay!!

Leslie’s car is in the shop – a couple of weeks ago when the water was so high, she misjudged how deep some standing water actually was, and drove into it. The car hasn’t run since.

At my place of work, June 30 is the end of fiscal year, and we’re trying to collect as much money as possible before then. We’ve been asked to work ten hours of overtime per week. This means going in at 6:00 am and working until 5:30 pm.

Sharing a car hasn’t been easy, getting the two of us to work and the kids to school on time, making sure everyone has a ride home without waiting too long.

Today was a bit stressful to say the least, and qualms plagued me to the point my stomach was upset.

Ah, well. Everyone is homenow, dinner and dishes are done, and everyone seems to be happy. I guess I worry too much about things that will work themselves out.